NO wonder it’s taken six years for “Buffalo Gal” to get from Buffalo to here. A.R. Gurney’s comedy/drama about an actress returning to her hometown to star in a local production of “The Cherry Orchard” strives for bittersweet, Chekhovian ruminations on love and art, but never strays from the parochial.
The career of Susan Sullivan, late of TV’s “Falcon Crest” and “Dharma & Greg,” bears no small similarity to that of her character Amanda, a fading TV star eager to return to her theatrical roots.
It soon becomes clear that it’s going to be tougher than she guessed.
“It’s a long way from Hollywood to Buffalo,” she sighs upon reaching the modest regional theater, and she means it in more ways than one.
As she struggles to remember her lines, she gets to know her new colleagues: an ambitious young director (Jennifer Regan) eager to make a name for herself, a relentlessly perky apprentice (Carmen M. Herlihy), an ever-handy stage manager (James Waterston), and her recovering addict co-star (Dathan B. Williams).
And then there’s Amanda’s high school sweetheart, Dan (Mark Blum), a married dentist who’s clearly never gotten over her.
Gurney strives to make pungently acerbic points about the second-class status of theater vs. film and television, but his observations have become tired and repetitive.
Will Amanda stay with the show or star in a new TV series? Will Dan win her heart? Neither plot point is very interesting, and the characters are fairly one-dimensional.
Under Mark Lamos’ uninspired direction, Sullivan has some nice moments as the faded diva, and Blum manages to make his character’s desperation somewhat moving. But it’s highly unlikely that anyone will be enthusiastically calling for this “Buffalo Gal” to “come out tonight.”
BUFFALO GAL
59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St.; (212) 279-4200. Through Sept. 13.